


The Universe Realigned

by Merfreak



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:33:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28634049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfreak/pseuds/Merfreak
Summary: *Slight Spoilers for Revolution of the Daleks*After the events on Gallifrey and being sent back to Earth, the reader spirals. The Doctor returns and feelings are addressed.-No reader pronouns specified
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Reader
Kudos: 16





	The Universe Realigned

“Live great lives.” The words were etched into your soul, thrumming through your head everyday like a mantra. You couldn’t escape them; they were even burned into the inside of your eyelids, shining every time you closed your eyes. The Doctor’s last words. Not her final last words of course- those were doubtlessly something brave and heroic. You wished you had been able to hear them. No, these were the last words she left you, Yaz, Ryan, and Graham with before walking out that TARDIS door and out of your lives. 

Try as you might, you can’t make yourself forget the most gut wrenchingly painful part of the goodbye. You had run to the Doctor, of course you had. Everyone else had stood still as statues, but you had latched onto her arm. Begging her not to leave, you had half a mind to physically hold the Doctor back. Hold her back from the Master, the cyber timelords, everything. 

So often back then you had found your hands grazing along some part of the time lady’s body, her fingers seemingly magnetically pulled to intertwine with yours. Both of you bumbling, awkward, idiots, not willing to speak anything into existence, but somehow still cultivating a new closeness together. When she pushed you away that day, it was an axe cleaving your chest in two. She had ripped her arm from your grasp, a violent rejection. Somehow worse were the accompanying words. 

“Get off me (Y/N)!” She sounded so exasperated, so angry, so cold- and every bit of it was directed at you. An axe would’ve been less painful. 

You couldn’t help the tears that had welled up in your eyes. It was humiliating, they proved for everyone there to see just how much the Doctor meant to you, and just how badly this had hurt. Then she’d said it, her not so final last words: “live great lives.” 

Now, ten months later, you looked around your cluttered flat from your spot on the couch. Nested in blankets, surrounded by who knows how many days-old dishes, the dusty blinds pulled tightly shut, the only light coming from your flickering TV. Great lives. Yeah right. You thought to yourself- not for the first time. Worthless, unimportant, stupid, useless. The words swam around your head like they always seemed to, a veritable dust storm of self-loathing, kicked up anytime you thought too hard about your past, present, or future. 

The rest of the fam had tried calling on you pretty regularly for the first four months. But, between living a little too far from the rest of them, and never answering the phone or the door, their efforts had finally dwindled to a text a week from Graham. You never replied. They were better off without you. Yaz was convinced the Doctor had survived, thanks to Ko’s interference. Last you heard, she was trying to figure out how to fly the TARDIS that had brought you all back home. You hoped she figured it out, but you simply couldn’t make yourself care. The Doctor was dead. You had no reason to assume otherwise, especially since it had been ten months without the slightest trace of her. 

You were pulled from your spiral by the heavy thunk of today’s mail sliding through the slot on your door. It joined the rest of the unopened letters and ads on the floor, adding a few extra centimeters of height. You half wondered how much time that pile represented- two weeks? A month? It was hard to remember. You readjusted on the couch and tried to focus on the car commercial playing from the television. Eventually you would fall asleep here, on the couch, to the drone of commercials and afternoon television. You would sleep and dream of the Doctor, then wake to another interminable day without her. You loved her. You hated her. You wished you had died on that red planet with her. 

You never got the chance to fall asleep. You thought you had, you thought you were dreaming, because you heard the all too familiar rusty wheeze of her TARDIS- the TARDIS. It wasn’t until you felt the frizzy hairs around your face begin to blow in the wind that simply appeared in your flat that you realized you were very much awake. You wanted to throw up, watching wide eyed as that old blue box pulsed into existence in your tiny excuse for a kitchen. The stillness after it fully appeared was utterly cloying. It wasn’t just you holding your breath, it was the entire universe. In small, jerky, frantic motions, you sat up on the couch, shedding blankets in every direction- never breaking eye contact with the ghost monument wedged between your stove and refrigerator. 

She bounded out as if nothing had changed. Simply by being, her energy overwhelmed your flat, a space that hadn’t seen energy for so very, very long. “Hey! I was in space jail!” Hands on hips, nose scrunched up, radiating excitement and indignation, the Doctor was back. 

You burst into laughter- hysterical, uncontrollable laughter. Later it would strike you that that was the first time you had laughed in ten months. It was mad, here she was, back as if nothing had happened, cracking a joke about space jail. The Doctor smiled, looking pleased with herself that her opening line had gone over so well. 

“Guess who got her out?” Captain Jack Harkness himself poked his head out of the TARDIS door, throwing you a dazzling grin.

“You met Jack, right?” The Doctor grinned. At that exact moment your gasping laughs became gasping sobs. Unsurprisingly, Jack noticed before the Doctor, and had the decency to wince before recusing himself back inside the TARDIS. You would think that ten months’ worth of crying would have left you tear-less, but the veritable fountain flowing from your eyes would prove otherwise. You buried your face against your bent knees, trying to hide from the Doctor, to maintain some shred of dignity. Your fingers found your hair and knotted themselves in the un-brushed mess. “(Y/N)? What’s wrong?” She sounded so worried. A dark part inside you was happy. Good. She should be worried, she should feel even half the pain and suffering she put you through. That thought scared you, and you forced it back down between heaving gasps. You looked up at her, there was no point in trying to hide now. She’d moved a little closer, standing flush against the opposite end of the couch. 

“I thought you were dead.” It’s the only thing you could choke out before your voice cracked. You knew you were glaring at her, red rimmed eyes, snot and tears streaking your face, but you couldn’t stop. She’s fully worried now, you could see it in her eyes. Those gorgeous hazel eyes. 

“What? How long has it been? A week?” She asked. You noticed her hand twitch and inch slightly closer towards you as if she wanted to reach out and touch you. She pulled it back though. 

“Ten months.” You hated how pathetic your voice sounded, all soft and wavering. That stunned her. She looked scared, and almost like she was about to cry too.

“No. No, that can’t be, I set identical temporal coordinates.” It’s as if she thinks saying it will change the reality. Either way, you didn’t bother answering her. You were beginning to recover, tears drying up, sobs being replaced by shaky shallow breaths. You were still sad, so sad, and angry, but there was another feeling, a spark you hadn’t felt for ten months. Happiness. The Doctor was here, she was alive. No one in the universe was possibly as lucky as you felt in that moment. “I’m sorry.” She breathed, and you saw her shoulders droop down. 

Hesitantly, as one would approach a stray animal, she came around and sat on the couch, facing you. If you reached out, you would be able to touch her, and the thought was terrifying. Consciously or not, there was still an inch of space between your toes and her leg- an invisible wall. 

“For what?” You asked, and the Doctor flinched. It came out sharper than you intended. 

“I’m sorry for leaving.” 

“That’s all then? That wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t’ve known.” You felt angry again. 

“No, there’s more.” The Doctor looked down, avoiding eye contact. “I’m sorry for how I left you. Back on Gallifrey, in the TARDIS, when I pushed you away.” You thought you’d misheard her. The Doctor solemnly addressing something intimate and emotional, you must be dreaming. You took in a breath to say something but the Doctor interrupted. “No, let me finish. I was scared and angry and I was cruel to you. You mean so much to me, (Y/N). The only life worth living is one with you in it, and to make what I had to do easier, I pulled away from you, I hurt you. It was cowardly and I’ve lived every day since regretting it.” You suddenly noticed just how tired the Doctor seemed. Her bravado from earlier gone, you could tell, she was just as changed and worn as you. 

“How…how long has it been for you?” You leaned forward, your churning feelings overpowered by concern for the woman you loved. 

“Nineteen years.” The Doctor whispered. You sucked in a breath, feeling as if a battering ram had been driven into your chest. “But I fought every day to get back to you, (Y/N) I promise.” The Doctor’s voice broke, and you watched as stray tears began to race down her cheeks. 

“Doctor.” You reached out a shaky hand and touched her knee. The effect was akin to lightning. Electricity racing through both of your bodies at being finally able to touch after so long apart. The moment hung between you for a second and then simultaneously you both moved forward, quicker than light, to meet in a hug. Your fingertips dug into the Doctor, clutching her tight against you. One of her hands slid up to the back of your head, gripping your hair. You buried your face into the crook of her neck, inhaling her scent, your legs hopelessly tangled. “I’ve missed you, I’ve missed you so much.” You murmured over and over again. She pulled back and you wanted to cry in protest until she brought a hand to cup your face, swiping away a tear with her thumb. 

“I spent so long thinking about you and what I did to you. I thought I’d ruined us, I thought that even if I made it back it wouldn’t matter because I wouldn’t have you.” She whispered, her eyes searching your face. 

“I love you, you idiot, it’ll take more than snapping at me to get rid of me.” You sniffed. The Doctor closed the few inches between you two and pressed her lips to yours. Your arms fell around her neck as you leaned into the kiss. 

“I love you, (Y/N).” The Doctor said softly once you had broken apart, resting your foreheads together. You pulled back this time, not entirely, but far enough that you could look her in the eyes. 

“I can’t go back to the way it was before.” You said, your voice firm. “I won’t. Our little unspoken tension thing- it’s not enough for me anymore.”

“I know.” 

“And I can’t just turn around and pretend nothing happened. I know it barely touches what you went through, but these ten months have been hell.” You gestured vaguely around at the mess surrounding the two of you. “I’ll need time, and even then, I don’t think I’ll ever be exactly the same.”

“Time is something I think we’ll have plenty of.” The Doctor finally offered a half smile. Relief washed over you, and you realized you had half expected the Doctor to reject you. A silly thought, you now recognized. If she had proven anything just now, it was that when it came to you, she was all in. 

The universe felt realigned. You were back with the Doctor, and she was back with you, just as it was always meant to be

**Author's Note:**

> I needed way more emotional depth than Revolution of the Daleks had, thus this fic was born. Thank you for reading! <3


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